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Meta’s New AI App Muse Struggles to Match ChatGPT’s Early Success
Confirmed
In Short: Muse, Meta’s latest AI app, has seen slower adoption compared to ChatGPT and its own previous launches.
Meta’s new AI app, Muse, has seen a slower start compared to its predecessors, according to data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Since its Tuesday launch, Muse has been downloaded more than 83,000 times on iOS in the United States, placing it second on the App Store’s Top Charts. However, this number pales in comparison to the 4.3 million U.S. downloads that Meta’s Threads app achieved during its debut.
Muse’s performance on Android has been even weaker, ranking 338 in Google Play’s Productivity category, with download figures not yet available. This lag in adoption is particularly notable given that Muse’s launch came just days after Meta agreed to an $18 billion multistate settlement over social media-related consumer harms, adding context to its early reception.
Despite the slower start, Muse represents one of Meta’s most significant bets on agentic AI, competing in a field that includes Google’s Gemini Spark and Anthropic’s Claude Cowork. Its most direct rival, Instinct, a text-based AI agent valued at $2.5 billion, has drawn attention from Silicon Valley for rapidly expanding features, including new email addresses for users and social coordination tools linking friends’ agents together. However, Instinct has faced scrutiny over privacy practices.
Despite the concerns, both existential and practical, the launch of Muse marks a significant step for Meta in the agentic AI space. As the competition heats up, the performance and features of these AI agents will be crucial in determining their success and impact in the market.
What's confirmed
- Meta’s new AI app, Muse, has seen a slower start compared to its predecessors, according to data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Since its Tuesday launch, Muse has been downloaded more than 83,000 times on iOS in the United States, placing it second on the App Store’s Top Charts. However, this number pales in comparison to the 4.3 million U.S. downloads that Meta’s Threads app achieved during its debut.
- Muse’s performance on Android has been even weaker, ranking 338 in Google Play’s Productivity category, with download figures not yet available. This lag in adoption is particularly notable given that Muse’s launch came just days after Meta agreed to an $18 billion multistate settlement over social media-related consumer harms, adding context to its early reception.
- Despite the slower start, Muse represents one of Meta’s most significant bets on agentic AI, competing in a field that includes Google’s Gemini Spark and Anthropic’s Claude Cowork. Its most direct rival, Instinct, a text-based AI agent valued at $2.5 billion, has drawn attention from Silicon Valley for rapidly expanding features, including new email addresses for users and social coordination tools linking friends’ agents together. However, Instinct has faced scrutiny over privacy practices.
- Despite the concerns, both existential and practical, the launch of Muse marks a significant step for Meta in the agentic AI space. As the competition heats up, the performance and features of these AI agents will be crucial in determining their success and impact in the market.
What's still developing
- Muse also lagged ChatGPT’s early pace, which reached roughly 83,300 daily downloads during its U.S.-only debut.
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- Joining me to help unpack the fears, both existential and otherwise, is NPR's Geoff Brumfiel.
- You know, you imagine an AI who's given a simple task - make paper clips - and everything starts out fine.
- They build a little factory, and they start doing it, but they keep thinking about how to make more paper clips.
- Yesterday, Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, which makes all the chips for all this AI stuff - he was on a podcast called "All-In," and he said he could see why the AI companies are freaking out. (SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "ALL-IN") JENSEN HUANG: They're building their company.
- Bannon and Sanders both talked about the possibility of AI going rogue.